The Reformatory
The ReformatoryTananarive Due
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The Reformatory (2023)

Tananarive Due

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Gracetown, Florida - June 1950 Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

ISBN:
9781803366531
Length:
576 pages

Genres: horror, mystery, thriller, historical fiction

Lists: …

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Reviews4

BooksandLala
Loved it

the reformatory like this one I love it because it has great commentary and it has a historical context where a child is taken into a reformatory and there is a goal technically for the people putting it on they're trying to reil rehabilitate him make him a better person and also enact like a punishment upon this child who did nothing wrong.

Review 1 of 8